Conventionally, circuit boards included in an electronic appliance are provided so as to be divided into at least two inside the electronic appliance, in accordance with characteristics and configurations of circuits, in some cases.
For example, a power circuit board mounted a power element thereon, such as a field effect transistor (FET) or an insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT), through which a large current flows, having a large amount of heat generation, and a control circuit board that performs a control calculation, such as an assist torque, out of the circuit boards included in the electronic appliance, such as a control unit (ECU) that performs driving control of an electric power steering apparatus used in a vehicle, such as a motor vehicle, are separately provided. Furthermore, the circuit boards are combined with another board so that the ECU includes a multilayer board comprising a plurality of the boards, in some cases.
In a case where the ECU comprises the above configuration, the following configuration is applied. Aboard surface of the power circuit board and a board surface of the control circuit board are arranged apart in parallel at a predetermined interval so as to face each other. For example, the power circuit board is arranged on the side of a bottom surface of a housing of the ECU, on which a heat dissipating sheet is provided, and the control circuit board is arranged apart at the predetermined interval above the power circuit board.
Therefore, in a case where the electronic appliance has the plural circuit boards constituted in the above configuration, as described in the exemplary circuit boards of the ECU, a connector for mutually, electrically coupling plural contacts provided to the plural circuit boards, such as the power circuit board and the control circuit board arranged apart from each other, is required.
Thus, for example, techniques described in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2007-242473 A (Patent Document 1), Japanese Unexamined Utility Model Application Publication No. S51-7635 U (Patent Document 2), and Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 11-154578 A (Patent Document 3) have been disclosed in order to meet the requirement.
In the techniques, multipolar lead parts 501 described in Patent Document 1 comprises plural connector pins 502A to 502J including an upper-side coupling portion 521, a lower-side coupling portion 524, retaining members 503A and 503B and curved portions 522 and 523, as shown in FIG. 17. The multipolar lead parts 501 more specifically comprises the plural connector pins arranged in a direction orthogonal to a coupling direction and the retaining members retaining the plural connector pins at a predetermined interval, the plural connector pins including a first curved portion curving in an arrangement plane including the arrangement direction and a second curved portion folding and curving at least one or more in a direction orthogonal to the arrangement plane. An object is to mitigate a stress that occurs in setting (inserting) a connector or in making a coupling under an environment in which vibrations are added at a high temperature, and to continue to retain a stable coupling state.
Further, a wiring board coupling tool 609 described in Patent Document 2 has a configuration comprising an insulating plate 608 integrally sticking an intermediate portion of plural coupling conductors 607 that has been arranged in parallel, and includes a bending portion 611 or a protrusion provided to each protruding portion of each of the conductors, protruding from the insulating plate 608 to two directions, as shown in a front view of FIG. 18A and in a side view of FIG. 18B, respectively. An object is to make a coupling between wiring boards in accordance with an interval between the wiring boards without dependence on the width of the insulating plate 608, by providing the bending portion 611 or the protrusion (not shown) to the wiring board coupling tool 609.
Furthermore, the technique described in Patent Document 3 is a method of manufacturing an insulation-displacement connector 730 including various types to be attached to a connector portion of a junction box. An object is to improve working efficiency relating to attachment of various types of insulation-displacement connectors 710A and 710B to a connector and to achieve a cost reduction of the junction box by coupling the various types of insulation-displacement connectors to be attached to the same connector, with a resin member 720 and then making the insulation-displacement connectors (710A and 710B) a part as shown in FIG. 19.